Don't Leave Me
by Shaytham
Summary: A hunt in Vermont leaves Dean questioning how he really feels about Sam. Wincest if you squint.


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing!

**Warnings: **Swearing, mentions of suicide (non graphic), grave desecration, spoilers

**Notes: **This takes place vaguely during the later half of season 1. The hunt they go on is based on a real urban legend from Stowe, Vermont. Lisa, Mary, their stories and 'suicides' are made up though. Obviously I took a few liberties with the actual history...

Not Beta'd sorry if there's mistakes. Please review!

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><p>It was a perfect summer afternoon, well as perfect as it could be for a pair of hunters who spent most of their time suffering from sleep deprivation and living off cheap deep-fried mystery meat. Dean yawned, keeping an eye on the empty road before them. Sam was fast asleep in the passenger seat, apparently oblivious to Dean blasting ACDC with the windows down. Dean wasn't sure where they were headed, as long as it was well away from the last case. Demons, he could deal with. People on the other hand, were fucking scary. It turned out there wasn't anything supernatural at all behind the killings in a small town in Arkansas. ...It had turned out to be a psychotic nutcase that escaped some kind of hidden incest colony in the hills, and not a Wendigo as they had suspected. Dean shook his head, as if the motion would somehow dash the revolting thoughts from his mind.<p>

Sam mumbled something unintelligible in his sleep. Dean glanced at him and turned the music down a bit. He was worried about Sam; this premonition bullshit had him on edge. He'd been lying right out of his ass when he told Sam it didn't freak him out. The thought crossed his mind to get in touch with their father and leave a message. But, if he couldn't be bothered to call back when Dean was in very real danger of dying, then what was the point? He'd just have to look after Sam; it was always his job anyway.

At least for the moment, things were fine. They were out on the open road with a full tank of gas and half a vending machine's worth of junk food in the backseat. Sam would probably put on his bitch face and complain about the lack of rabbit food or whatever, but Dean didn't really care. Sam twitched again in his sleep, his head falling softly against his window that was only rolled down a few inches to let some fresh air in. _Nightmare_, Dean realized, watching him. ...Not that it was surprising really. They'd hit the lottery before they got a restful night's sleep.

He didn't wake Sam, though. It wouldn't do any good. He needed sleep, even if the horrors came with it. Dean shifted in his seat and slowed up a bit to read a sign that read 'Welcome to Vermont'. A little ways down the road, he pulled over at a rest stop, leaving the Impala running with Sammy still in nightmare-land.

Inside the empty welcome center, Dean grabbed a few bottles of water and a road map. He had the atlases, but they'd never been in Vermont before so he might as well take one just in case. It was the newspaper that one of the staff had left open on the counter that caught his eye on his way back outside. He made this ridiculous back-step and looked over his shoulder at the front page headline: 'St. Johnsbury Teen Hangs Self on Haunted Bridge'. Without even thinking about it, Dean snatched the paper and headed back to the car. Sam jerked awake with a gasp when Dean slammed the door shut and tossed the Vermont road map on his lap.

"Hey there Sleeping Beauty." Dean said in his usual sarcastic tone, hiding the worry easily. "Are we gonna have to talk about this again? Is it still about Jess, or have your magic visions shown us the next hunt?"

"Jerk." Sam mumbled, letting his head fall back against the seat with with a thump.

"Bitch." Dean replied automatically.

"It's not about Jess, it's..." Sam shook his head and sighed. "I don't want to talk about it, Dean."

"Yeah all right, I think I found the next job anyway." Dean said and slapped the folded up newspaper into Sam's lap. He took it wordlessly and skimmed over the article.

"Sixteen year old Lisa Everheart was found dead last night at Gold River bridge in Stowe. Apparently a suicide, she hanged herself from the rafters. Local authorities are considering closing the bridge as this is the third suicide in the past five years..." Sam read aloud, frowning. He read the rest of the article to himself. Mostly it was the usual tragic stuff about the family being devastated and how Lisa was the head of her class with a bright future. Unfortunately, it didn't mention anything about the bridge other what was said in the headline about it being haunted. "Know anything about the bridge?" Sam asked, yawning.

"Not a clue," Dean replied, "I figured I'd leave the research to you and I'll try to talk to the family."

"Just don't be a dick, Dean. They think she killed herself, remember. For all we know, maybe she did." Sam said and tossed the paper into the back seat.

A few hours later, they checked into a small cabin in Stowe, Vermont. It was beautiful there, Dean had to admit that. It was winter, and cold as fuck, but absolutely beautiful nonetheless. The cabin was definitely an upgrade from their usual roach motels that apparently didn't exist in that part of the state. They even got their own separate rooms, and a living area with cushy armchairs and a kitchenette. It was a rustic place, with old hand sewn quilts tossed over the beds and worn wooden floors. Sam sat at the small white kitchen table engrossed in his laptop while Dean cleaned and checked over their array of guns. Sam cleared his throat and tapped his fingers on the tabletop.

"Yeah, I think this is our kind of gig." He said with a nod. "Just sounds like the usual salt and burn sort of deal, though."

"Yeah? As if it's _ever_ that easy. What did you find?" Dean asked, shoving one of his handguns back into his worn-out duffel bag.

"Well, there's no actual facts to back it up other than some college kids with an Ouija board, but the story's pretty cut and dry." Sam told him. "The locals call it Emily's bridge, after a girl who supposedly killed herself there. She was going to run away from her family and get married, but her fiance never showed up so she hung herself from the rafters. I dunno Dean. This could be anything. It could be an actual spirit, or maybe just a distraught teenager that killed herself there for irony's sake. There _are_ tons of reports of paranormal activity there, and the three suicides that paper mentioned were only the recent ones. There's been nine in total since the 1800's; all of them hanged themselves. It's definitely worth a look."

"Right. So are we waiting until morning, or do you just wanna go for it?" Dean asked, loading one of the shotguns with rock salt.

"Most of the activity takes place after midnight when she supposedly hanged herself. We could go now, or we could scope the place out during the day and talk with some of the locals first. Her family's east of here in Caledonia county, that might take a day. I'll see if I can find out anything about the other two victims, too." Sam explained.

* * *

><p>The next morning found Dean alone in the Impala as he made his away across town and came to Emily's bridge. Sam had rented a car with one of their many scammed credit cards and headed out to talk with the family, leaving Dean to scout out the area. It was creepy, he'd give it that for sure. There was nothing and no one around. He pulled the Impala off the road a bit and climbed out with the EMF detector in one hand and a rock salt loaded handgun in the other. He shivered and pulled his coat tighter around his shoulders. Winter in Vermont, Dean decided, officially sucked. The first thing he noticed was the utter silence, other than the sound of snow crunching under his feet as he approached the little wooden covered bridge. He rubbed his hands together for warmth and switched on the EMF detector. <em>Nothing,<em> he noted, keeping it on as he stepped into the shadow of the bridge. Immediately, the EMF detector lit up.

"So there _is_ something here." Dean muttered, looking up at the old rafters and stopping just below the third one. That was where Lisa had lynched herself according to the police reports that Sam had hacked into. There weren't any marks that Dean could see, though. The snow on the rafter was undisturbed, though there were footprints and tire tracks on the bridge. Lisa had only killed herself the night before last, and it hadn't snowed yet. Dean ran back to the Impala and pulled out the printed police reports.

There was no mention of a rope, or what she hung herself with being found at the scene. In fact, she'd been found laying face down on the ground. The only indication that she was hanged were the bruises were consistent with hanging with a rope or belt rather than being strangled. And, of course, the official cause of death was asphyxiation. The team that investigated the site also found no evidence of anyone being there other than Lisa who had apparently gone there on foot – leading them to suspect suicide.

"I'll be damned." Dean breathed, and looked back over his shoulder at the bridge as he dialed Sam's number.

"Yeah?" Sam answered after the third ring. "Find anything?"

"Sure did. The EMF's picking a strong signal and aside from the cops picking up the body, no one's been here. If she dangled from the rafters, something would have dislodged the ice up there, but nothings out of place. We've got something for sure. How'd the chat with the family go?" Dean asked, leaning against the Impala and keeping an eye on the bridge. For a fraction of a second, he thought he saw a bit of fog hovering near the ground.

"You were right Dean, I don't think she killed herself. She was having a sleepover with her cousin and some friends in Stowe, according to her mother. One of her friends told me Lisa decided to meet up with her boyfriend at the bridge on a dare. Only, he never showed because his parents caught him sneaking out." Sam told Dean, sounding subdued. "I don't think the boyfriend has anything to do with it – he's a wreck."

"So it's just like the story? Chick gets stood up and hangs herself." Dean mused.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "It'll take me a while to get back to Stowe; I'll meet you there at midnight. There's a couple things I want to check out at the county library, too. I'm not sure where the body is buried. She's kind of an urban legend more than anything. Her name might not even be Emily."

"Damn it," Dean complained. "Well, there's no point in staying here all day. I'll see if I can find anything in the town records here in Stowe."

* * *

><p>Dean was bored. He didn't find anything they didn't already know and most of the town's residents that he'd chatted with were actually tourists. Apparently Stowe was a popular skiing destination, what with the mountains and all. Irritably, he fidgeted on the old, creaky wooden chair in the mostly empty, rustic little ski lodge he was in. Some places never change with the times, this entire State was one of them – Dean was pretty sure of that. He liked that though, it felt peaceful even if a bit old fashioned.<p>

"Did you want anything else?" The waitress asked, sliding his fifth coffee to him. He'd miss the coffee, that was for sure. Green Mountain coffee was some kind of elixir of the Gods. Dean gave the cute little brunette waitress a smile and shook his head. _Your phone number,_ he thought to himself. ...If only he didn't already have a date at midnight at at that creepy ass bridge. Actually...

"So, I'm new in town." He said smoothly. "One of my buddies said something about a haunted bridge near here. What's the deal with that?"

"Oh that's..." She frowned and clutched at the little notepad in her hands. "It's horrible what happened to Lisa. Maybe if we'd gone looking for her she'd still be..." Bingo, Dean thought to himself. One of her friends.

"Oh, I read that in that paper. It's terrible. That sort of thing happen before?" Dean inquired.

"Yeah, a few times. There's been a lot of paranormal investigators there over the years. They say the bridge is haunted, and the ghost prays on lonely women." The waitress replied, and handed his bill to him.

"So, all the suicides were women?" Dean asked curiously. "Tell me about the ghost."

"Yeah, they all were. They call the ghost Emily. There's all sorts of stories. Some say she hanged herself, or that her fiance's mother murdered her there. One story even says that she drove her carriage into the river and died." The waitress replied.

"Is she buried nearby?" Dean pressed.

"Uh, why? I don't know. Look I've got to go." She said, leaving Dean alone. He sucked down his coffee and left a twenty on the table. If Emily _had_ been real, no one know what the hell happened to her.

* * *

><p>Later that night, around 11:30, Dean paced the length of the bridge in boredom – rock salt loaded shotgun firmly in hand. He'd even slipped an iron dagger into one of his belt loops, just in case. The silence was definitely getting to him. The only sound was his own breathing, footsteps and the occasionally cracking as some ice slid from the bridge into the frozen brook underneath it. When his phone rang, Dean's heart nearly stopped from how ungodly loud it was.<p>

"Yeah, Sammy?" Dean asked, looking over his shoulder at the impala that was quickly becoming blanketed with the slowly falling snow.

"I'm going to be a little late. I kinda got arrested..." Sam began.

"Dude, what the fuck?" Dean complained, rolling his eyes.

"Got caught with a fake badge at the police station. You know how that is." Sam grumbled. "Anyway. I'll be there in about an hour, had to uhh... borrow a car."

"Meaning you hotwired some ugly ass piece of shit. Sammy, I'm so proud of you." Dean said, and could swear he _heard_ Sam rolling his eyes.

"Shit I have to go!" Sam snapped and the line went dead. Dean swore and went back to pacing the bridge.

It felt like days had gone by when he checked the time on his phone. 1:30. Sam had said an hour. Worriedly, he shoved his freezing hands into his pockets and watched as his breath rose in misty clouds before him. _Fuck it. _Irritably, he started on his way back to the Impala. Sam had gotten in trouble somehow, obviously. He'd just have to find his ass. Just as Dean reached the edge of the bridge, a young woman in a tattered red dress materialized in front of him.

"Oh, you must be Emily." Dean said sweetly. "Sorry hon, I don't have the time for this." Dean said and shot her right through the face with rock salt. The apparition vanished and he stepped away from the bridge.

"_He isn't coming._" Dean heard a soft, female voice whisper in his ear. "_He abandoned you. He doesn't need you. Doesn't want you. __You love him too much to live without him, though. I know...__"_

"Shut up!" Dean yelled, carving an arc through the air behind him with the iron dagger. Doubt startled to settle in his mind, though. The bitch knew right where to hit him, he'd give her that. What if Samdid leave him one day and run off back to law school and white picket fences? The thought made his heart ache. He wanted Sam to be happy but... Sam kept Dean grounded, without him he doubted he ever find their father. And what if John _was_ dead? He didn't like thinking about it but it wasa possibility. What he did know, was that he could never do it alone. Without Sam he... No. It was messing with his head somehow. It had to be.

Emily vanished again as Dean's dagger sliced through her, but she reappeared a few feet away – under the rafter that Lisa supposedly hanged herself from. "You're a persistent bitch, I'll give you that." Dean ground out.

"_I can end the loneliness..."_ Dean lunged at the spirit with the Dagger, but let out a strangled gasp of horror as an invisible force grabbed him by the throat and suspended him in midair. He clawed uselessly at the air, desperate to breathe. _Sam,_ He thought hopelessly as blackness began to creep into his vision.

"Dean!" He heard a familiar voice shout, followed by a gunshot. The next thing he knew, he was face-down in the snow, wheezing for breath. Sam bolted to him, nearly slipping on the ice as he skidded to a halt at Dean's side. "Dean! Dean! Are you with me?"

"Yeah." Dean said, voice raspy. Sam hauled him to his feet and gragged him in the direction of the Impala. "Where is she?" Dean croaked, looking back over his shoulder.

"I don't know. Vanished." Sam answered, shoving Dean into the passenger side of the car.

"Hey, you all right? Sorry I was late, man." Sam asked, looking over at Dean with concern.

"No chick flick moments." Dean reminded him hoarsely and slumped against the seat. Where had that doubt come from though? For a moment there, he'd honestly believed that maybe the ghost bitch was right. Maybe Sammy wasn't wasn't coming. The thought sent chills down Dean's spine.

"Sammy?" Dean muttered.

"Yeah, Dean?"

"Thanks for not leaving me there." Dean said shortly. "All right, no more girly emotional shit."

Sam snorted in amusement and turned up the volume of _Back in Black_ as they drove back toward their cabin. It was nearly morning when they stumbled in through the door, Sam tired to the bone and Dean dripping wet from the snow. Sam collapsed into one of the big squishy armchairs and Dean found his way to the shower. The water felt like it was burning his skin off after being in the cold for so long. Again, his thoughts wandered back to Sam. There was the mindless terror while Emily's spirit was talking to him, the fear that maybe Sam _wasn't _coming. ...That he had just left Dean to deal with a murderous evil son of a bitch all by himself. Then, there was the overwhelming relief when he'd heard his voice...

Dean hadn't even noticed his breath coming in short gasps, or the tightness in his chest until he heard Sam yelling something about whether or not he'd died in there because was taking half a century.

_You love him too much to live without him, _Emily's words echoed in Dean's head. Miserably, he padded out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel and went to his room to sulk.

Dean fell asleep almost instantly. Which would have been a blessing if he weren't standing alone in the middle of that damned bridge again.

"_He isn't coming. You're all alone." _Dean just ignored Emily and stepped off the bridge. He'd suspected the first time that she couldn't follow, and he assumed he was right as she hovered at the edge but didn't follow him.

"_You love him, but he'll never love you." _Her voice came to him, like a whisper of winter air.

"Shut up! That's my _brother_ you're talking about!" Dean shouted.

"_What does that matter when you know that life means nothing without him?" _Dean snarled and turned around, plunging the iron dagger into the apparition with significantly more violence than entirely necessary.

"You are one sullen bitch, you know that?" Dean hissed, and noticed too late that one of his feet was inside the threshold of the bridge. He tried to back up, but that ghostly force had him again. The air was being forced out of him, his throat was burning as he feet kicked uselessly beneath him. He was going to die. He was -

"SAM!" Dean cried out and came awake with such a violent jerk that he rolled right off the edge of the bed with a loud thump. He gasped, realizing that he could breathe as the room came back into focus. Sam was at his side in a second, trying to help him up. Dean swatted his hands away and put his back to the side of the bed, panting.

"Nightmare." He mumbled.

"Do we need to talk about this?" Sam asked seriously, but with a slight hint of his usual attitude. Dean met his eyes feeling like he was on the verge of tears, and nodded. So much for no more damn chick flick moments.

* * *

><p>"The ghost at the bridge?" Sam asked sitting the kitchen table with a hot cup of cocoa cupped in his hands. "Why did she attack you, if she only targets women?"<p>

Dean had explained the dream, leaving out the bits of emotional tripe about him being in love with Sam. He sat across from the man in question, with the old blue and white quilt from his room drawn over his shoulders. He felt like he'd never be warm again.

"I think maybe it _was_ similar," Dean told him. "I was waiting for you, and started to think you wouldn't show. She appeared when I was about to leave and go looking for your ass. It probably just was some kind of run of bad luck that other victims were women."

"She said something just before I shot her full of rock salt." Sam pressed. "Something about you having no home return to. What the hell, man?"

"I dunno, Sammy. But, if the story's true than she probably didn't have anywhere to run to when her sweetheart got cold feet. You know, since she supposedly ditched her family to marry him." Dean replied. "Ugh, it felt like she was messing with my head. Maybe she still is. So what now?"

"I don't know, Dean. I can't find a name, a grave site... Anything. And you told me there's a whole bunch of different variants to the story." Sam grumbled, staring at his coffee like it had offended him somehow.

"Maybe it's not a spirit then? Some kind of other monster?" Dean asked dejectedly.

"Probably not. Let's tackle what we do know. The first suicide recorded on the bridge was in December of 1837. It was a teenage girl, Mary E. Taylor, the daughter of a local businessman. According to the newspaper I found in the county library's archives, she killed herself because her parents had arranged a marriage for her. She left a note saying that she refused to marry her suitor, because she was in love with the baker's son, who was going to meet her at the bridge so they could run away together. Her father had publicly threatened to shoot him if he caught her near his daughter again a few days before. It was quite the scandal." Sam explained, opening his laptop and showing Dean a copy of the paper that he'd scanned. "Now, there's another part to the pattern: All the suicides were in December. Meaning the spirit is probably dormant the rest of year."

"As if Christmas wasn't depressing enough." Dean muttered and took a swig of his coffee. "Anything else?"

"Not really, unless Mary's who we're looking for. Which would be wonderful, since she's in a cemetery nearby." Sam replied.

"Maybe it _is_ her, man." Dean suggested. "Mary _E. _Taylor? Maybe her middle name was Emily. I mean, all the girls' stories are similar so it's got to be something else."

"I hadn't thought of that. I had just figured that she was the first victim, not necessarily the one who's haunting the place." Sam said, and grabbed the laptop. He'd already hacked into the library's online resources. It wasn't hard finding information on the Taylor family, considering that they had the run of the town, albeit from the shadows, at the time. "I'll be damned," Sam breathed, when he pulled up the family tree.

"What's up?"

"James Taylor, Mary's father, adopted her when he married her mother. She wasn't his daughter, and she was fifteen when he married her mother. Her birth name was Emily Martin. He forced her to change her name when he adopted her, because he didn't want people thinking she was named after this women he was slutting around with before he got married. She kept Emily as a middle name, though. Apparently he was an abusive jerk to both Mary and his wife, Hellen. But, no one did anything because they didn't want to end up on his bad side. He was kind of a douche bag, but had a lot of money, power and friends in low places. People that pissed him off had a habit of never being seen again." Sam said breathlessly.

"Great, get the salt and the gas can. Lighter's in my pocket." Dean said, already halfway to the door. Sam dropped everything and followed him.

* * *

><p>Luckily, the old Mansfield cemetery was deserted, and there hadn't been a single car on the way there. Perfect conditions for a salt and burn. Dean almost gleefully started digging when he found the headstone that was nearly unreadable. He was aware of Sam watching with a curious frown as he sat the gas can down on the grass and took and seat on top of the large headstone for the neighboring grave.<p>

"You all right, Dean?" Sam finally asked. "It's just that you usually whine about having to do the digging..."

"I especially hate this bitch. It's kind of personal." Dean called, heaving a shovel full of dirt onto the grass. "Kind of a pain though, it's frozen like a rock. She better be shallow."

Sam grabbed the other shovel without comment and gave him a hand. It was hard going, with the frost and ice, but about two feet down, it finally got a little easier. Both of them were panting from the effort, their breath leaving clouds of mist in the air when Sam's shovel finally struck the rotted cover of an old pinewood coffin.

"Fucking finally." Dean muttered, helping Sam finish unearthing the decaying remains. Both of them took a moment to catch their breath as they looked down at the moldering bones.

"Cheers." Sam said and starting salting the remains. Wordlessly, dean poured a liberal amount of gasoline all over the bones and what was left of the coffin.

"See you in hell, bitch." Dean said and felt a little _too _satisfied as he dropped a match down into the hole. It didn't take long, and all that was left was to swing by the bridge and see if Emily was still skulking around.

...She wasn't.

The EMF came up clean, and the eerie silence was gone. They could hear a lune singing in the brook somewhere, and the whisper of the wind as it blew through the bridge.

"I still say we should just burn the bridge down, too." Dean said disgustedly, leaning against the side of it and looking over his shoulder at Sam who was checking for any kind of residual presence.

"All right, Dean. Out with it, what the hell happened that made you hate this spirit with such a passion? I've never seen you get off _that _much from burning a corpse." Sam asked, looking up at the icicles danging from the rafters of the bridge.

"Look, I don't want to talk about it. But, just promise me something, okay? Never leave me, Sammy. At least not when it's a life or death thing." Dean said in a defeated tone. He didn't do feelings, and romantic bullshit. This was Sam for fuck's sake. He loved him, yeah, but not _that _way. Well, sadly enough he _could_ love him that way. Physically, at least. There was denying that Sam had a great ass and - No. Just _no_. If he crossed that line, he wanted to be damn sure it was something they both wanted.

"You know I won't leave you. Not when it matters, anyway." Sam told him with an entirely fake smile. "Let's head back to the cabin. We've still got it rented for the weekend. We might as well relax for a couple days."

"Relax? You don't want to put the pedal to the metal and go chasing after Dad?" Dean asked incredulously. "Who the hell are you, and what did you do with my brother."

"I don't think it'll help us find him any faster if he doesn't _want _to be found." Sam admitted, and gave Dean a knowing glance. "Besides, you need a break. How about we sleep in and have a vintage horror movie marathon?" Dean smiled and clapped Sam on the shoulder.

"Deal." He said, and started heading back to the Impala. "Is there a liquor store on the way back?"

"Two of them, actually." Sam replied, laughing.

Things were finally looking up, for the weekend at least. A successful hunt followed by watching old black and white horror movies with Sam and a bottle of Jack... Sometimes, Dean had to admit it wasn't _that _hard to be kind of normal. Well, until they started over-analyzing the Hollywood monsters and comparing them to the real ones. ...At least for a little while they could take a well deserved break.


End file.
